Yes, what was once considered a birthright at $29.99 a month is slowly becoming an endangered species. In some places in the United States, unlimited Internet is a thing of the past replaced by metered usage that could limit users to as little as five gigabytes per month without paying for overages. YouTube users and creators are screwed if they ever take up on that middling offer because they would essentially pay more to feed their daily addiction to iJustine, Cooking With Dog or Smosh.

However, with everyone spending more time on the Internet watching YouTube on limited resources and a slower network, some people may understand why cable companies are trying to impose these caps. What could possibly go wrong with that?

For YouTube Creators

Placing caps on Internet usage not only makes it harder for YouTube creators to do their research and observe videos (they have to enjoy videos too!) but will severely impact their output since they will have to pay more to upload content. Videos can take up many gigabytes to upload, and the luxury to put as much content as possible each month without paying extra will whittle out more creative people from the equation, especially those who don’t have a lot of money for unlimited Internet. Worse, with improved technology means more data used, so it may slow down innovation and creativity over time. Did I also mention that less people will be watching content?

If you’re always uploading and creating videos, perhaps it’s a good idea to understand how much data you’re using in the near future.

For YouTube Viewers

The days of spending hours watching cats fitting into boxes, dogs that are knowledgeable in the culinary arts and living dolls will become a thing of the past. If there’s anyone facing the biggest brunt of cable companies’ tactics to limit Internet usages, it’s definitely the users. They’re the ones who decide what’s popular and what’s trending and limiting them to five gigabytes per month, which will make them think twice of browsing videos and supporting their viral favorites. Expect viewers to watch less content. They’ll be worrying more about whether they went over the limit each month rather than how many movies they get to watch in the comfort of their own room.

If there is one positive about capping Internet usage, at least there won’t be as many of those stupid 10-hour videos floating around YouTube.

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Ed Carrasco has been in the journalism field for nearly a decade. Some of his photographs/articles have been featured in publications such as the Guardian, LA Weekly, OC Weekly, the Fullertonian, Cerritos-Artesia Patch and Orange Coast Magazine.
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA and a master’s degree in Journalism from Kingston University in the United Kingdom.